Rangers, Sam Haggerty Agree To Minor League Deal
The Rangers have agreed to a minor league contract with utilityman Sam Haggerty, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The BHSC client will be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.
Haggerty, 30, was non-tendered by the Mariners back in November. He suffered a torn Achilles tendon while running down a flyball with the team’s Triple-A affiliate last May, which unsurprisingly proved to be a season-ending injury.
The switch-hitting Haggerty spent parts of five seasons with the Mariners, plus a very brief MLB debut with the Mets organization (four plate appearances) back in 2019. He’s a career .232/.312/.351 hitter in 477 trips to the plate, including a career-best .255/.345/.382 (113 wRC+) in 309 plate appearances with Seattle from 2022-23.
Haggerty is lacking in power but makes up for that with plus speed and a good bit of versatility. Statcast credited him with 92nd percentile sprint speed (29.2 ft/sec) as recently as 2023, and Haggerty boasts a career 33-for-36 (91.7%) mark in stolen base attempts in the majors. He’s played all three outfield spots and each of first base, second base and third base in the big leagues as well. The bulk of his time has been spent in the outfield — left field, specifically — and he’s drawn solid grades for his glovework there. Haggerty is best-suited for the short side of a platoon; despite his switch-hitting status, he’s just a .209/.278/.272 hitter as a lefty but carries a sharp .263/.355/.452 output when batting from the right side of the plate.
Given that Haggerty has spent the past half decade in the AL West, the Rangers have seen him plenty. He’ll give Texas some depth around the diamond but particularly in the outfield, where Wyatt Langford, Evan Carter and Adolis Garcia are slated to start and veteran Leody Taveras is projected to be the fourth outfielder. (Of course, Taveras stands as a viable trade candidate, which could improve Haggerty’s chances of making the roster.) If Haggerty does crack the big league club, he’s at 4.036 years of MLB service, making him controllable at least through 2026.
Rangers Have Gotten Trade Interest In Leody Taveras
The Rangers have received calls from other teams regarding Leody Taveras, writes Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. There’s no indication that Texas is actively shopping the center fielder, but there’s logic to considering offers.
Texas looks as if they’ll enter the season right up against the $241MM luxury tax threshold. It has been clear since the beginning of the offseason that Texas doesn’t want to go beyond that number. They currently have around $235MM in tax obligations, according to the RosterResource calculations.
That’s an unofficial estimate, but the Rangers are in the ballpark of the CBT threshold. The tax number is calculated at the end of the season. Salaries acquired during the season (usually around the trade deadline) count against a team’s CBT hit on a prorated basis. Teams generally want to leave a few million dollars in payroll space for in-season maneuvering if they’re hoping to stay below the line.
Owner Ray Davis told Grant earlier this week that the team still intends to stay under the $241MM marker. Perhaps that thinking would change if the front office feels they’re one or two significant moves away at the deadline. For now, the goal is apparently to remain below the line to reset their tax bracket. Teams are hit with escalating penalties for exceeding the threshold in consecutive seasons. Texas paid around $10.8MM in taxes last year, their second straight season going above the line.
That’d put them in the third and highest tier of repeat payor for every season forward until they dip below. Third-time payors are charged a 50% tax on spending for their first $20MM in overages. That respectively jumps to 62% and 95% on their next $20MM increments, followed by a 110% tax on any spending that is more than $60MM above the base threshold. CBT payors also face tougher draft and signing bonus penalties if they sign free agents who declined a qualifying offer.
While a few teams (i.e. Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies, Mets) have been willing to exceed the thresholds repeatedly in recent years, most ownership groups prefer to avoid the escalating penalties. That’s evidently Davis’ goal as well. As Grant observes, even the projected $6MM in spending capacity is probably an overstatement. Salary unlocked via bonuses counts against a team’s tax number as it is triggered. That’s most relevant with rewards to Tyler Mahle, whose contract contains $5MM in innings-based incentives for the upcoming season. That could theoretically push his CBT number from its current $11MM figure as high as $16MM, which would nearly close the estimated gap on its own.
It leaves the front office with limited spending capacity both for the next few weeks and during the season … unless they offload payroll via trade. Taveras is one of the clearer candidates for such a move. He agreed to a $4.75MM salary for his second of four trips through the arbitration process. The Joc Pederson signing means the Rangers will play Wyatt Langford in left field on most days. That’ll push Evan Carter into center field, while Adolis García will get a rebound opportunity in right field.
Taveras nominally becomes the fourth outfielder. That’s understandable coming off a poor year. The lefty-hitting center fielder posted a modest .229/.289/.352 slash across 529 plate appearances. Defensive Runs Saved was also very down on his glovework, grading him 10 runs below average in more than 1200 innings. Statcast viewed his defense much more favorably, crediting him as five runs above average.
Statcast has graded Taveras as an above-average defender in every season of his career. DRS has been more mixed in its evaluation, though he has a decent +3 mark in his career overall. Texas has never played Taveras anywhere outside of center field. It’s likely that most teams would feel he’s at least a capable, if not outright plus, defender. The bat is more of a question, but he was a roughly league average hitter between 2022-23. Taveras combined for a .264/.311/.400 slash in nearly 900 trips to the plate over those two seasons.
This has been a cold offseason for teams looking for center field help. Harrison Bader, a .234/.279/.362 hitter over the last two seasons, is the top free agent at the position. The White Sox and Marlins are the only teams fully in rebuild mode. Miami doesn’t really have a center fielder to market. Chicago has held a high asking price on Luis Robert Jr. and looks likely to carry him into Spring Training.
MLBTR has speculatively highlighted Taveras as a potential fit for the Guardians, who could use another outfielder and would benefit from pushing Lane Thomas back to right field. (Cleveland’s collection of pre-arbitration relievers matches up nicely with a Texas team whose biggest question is probably still its bullpen.) The Giants, Royals and Angels are other potential options to acquire a center fielder. The Astros are also seeking a left-handed hitting outfielder, though the Rangers might be reluctant to help their in-state division rivals.
Texas would need to weigh the benefits of shopping Taveras against the risk that they’d need to rely on him heavily during the season. García is coming off a career-worst season in which he hit .224/.284/.400. Carter was limited to 45 games by a stress reaction in his back. He underwent postseason surgery. While he’s expected to be ready for Spring Training, the Rangers could have some concern about how he’ll hold up physically. If they keep Taveras, other candidates for a salary-clearing trade are Mahle ($11MM initial CBT hit), Jon Gray ($14MM), or Dane Dunning ($2.66MM).
Rangers Announce Creation Of Rangers Sports Network
The Rangers announced the formation of the Rangers Sports Network, a club-affiliated entity that will handle the team’s broadcasting deals. It’s the culmination of the franchise’s months-long effort to create its own network after its broadcasting deal with Diamond Sports Group (now operating as Main Street Sports) expired at the end of the 2024 season.
“One of the main goals when seeking solutions for Rangers television broadcasts was to give fans more access to our games,” Rangers owner Ray Davis said in a press release. “We determined that the best path toward providing our fans with more options is to handle many of the broadcast obligations in-house.
By forming Rangers Sports Network to address the various production responsibilities for team broadcasts and content, we feel the entity is in a strong position to deliver for Rangers fans as well as execute other potential broadcast opportunities in the future,” Davis added.
By creating their own network, the Rangers can negotiate contracts with different cable and streaming providers to handle in-market broadcasting. They’ve already negotiated one such streaming partnership with Victory+, the platform that also has a streaming deal with the National Hockey League’s Dallas Stars. The Rangers plan to announce additional deals with cable and broadcast television providers in the coming days.
Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes that those various forthcoming contracts are expected to expand access to nearly every household within the club’s broadcasting territory — which includes not just all of Texas but most of Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arkansas. Grant notes that only a fraction of households could access Rangers games on Diamond’s Bally Sports Southwest, a result of Diamond’s inability to reach distribution agreements with a number of carriers.
The Rangers took a different path than every other team that had previously contracted with Diamond. Most clubs renegotiated one-year deals with the rebranded Main Street Sports at a slightly lesser fee. A few others turned broadcasting rights to Major League Baseball, which will make those teams’ games available in-market on MLB.tv.
Rangers Sign Jesse Chavez, Cody Thomas To Minor League Deals
The Rangers announced that they have signed right-hander Jesse Chavez and outfielder Cody Thomas to minor league deals. They also announces previously-reported pacts for righty David Buchanan and catcher Chad Wallach. Chavez is represented by Apex Baseball and Thomas by Octagon. Both of them will be in big league camp as non-roster invitees.
Chavez, 41, has already written a lengthy baseball story. He debuted in the big leagues back in 2008 and has appeared in each season since then, suiting up for nine different clubs, having multiple stints with many of them.
That includes the Rangers. Chavez was drafted by Texas way back in 2002, but was traded to the Pirates prior to making it to the majors. He eventually found his way back to the Rangers, signing with them going into 2018, though he was traded to the Cubs that summer. Going into 2019, he came back to Texas yet again, signing a two-year deal at that time.
Despite his age, he has proven himself still capable of getting major league hitters out. He spent 2024 with Atlanta and tossed 63 1/3 innings over 46 appearances. He allowed 3.13 earned runs per nine frames, though there may have been a bit of luck there. His 20.8% strikeout rate was subpar but his .279 batting average on balls in play and 80.3% strand rate were both on the fortunate side, which is why his 4.43 FIP and 3.81 SIERA were higher than his ERA.
There’s no real harm in the Rangers bringing aboard an old friend via a minor league deal. The club has been trying to remake its bullpen while dealing with some notable financial restraints. Kirby Yates, David Robertson, José Leclerc and Andrew Chafin all hit free agency after last year, but the club has been a bit frugal in replacing them since it seems they want to stay under the competitive balance tax.
They acquired Robert Garcia, who has not yet qualified for arbitration, in the Nathaniel Lowe trade. They’ve also given one-year pacts to Chris Martin, Jacob Webb, Shawn Armstrong, and Hoby Milner, with no one in that group getting more than $5.5MM. It’s unclear what kind of salary Chavez would make if selected to the big league roster, but it’s likely not huge, so he provides the club with yet another modestly-priced addition to the relief group.
Thomas, 30, got into 29 games with the Athletics over the 2022 and 2023 seasons. He hit .250/.308/.333 in those but was outrighted off the roster and became a free agent going into 2024. He headed to Asia last year to play for the Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He went hitless in 18 at-bats and was mostly kept on the farm by the Buffaloes, slashing .263/.335/.324 in 79 games in the minors.
Where Can The Rangers Find A Closer?
The Rangers watched four key relievers hit the open market to begin the 2024-25 offseason. Closer Kirby Yates, who proved a bargain pickup on a one-year $4.5MM deal, reached free agency alongside David Robertson, Jose Leclerc and Andrew Chafin (who had a club option declined). Those four were the Rangers' top four late-inning options in the season's second half.
Beyond the difficulty of retaining any group of coveted free agents and/or rebuilding an entire relief corps, Texas faced financial difficulties. Re-signing Nathan Eovaldi and improving a lineup that struggled badly against fastballs were both priorities. Eovaldi cost more than most would've anticipated entering the offseason, benefitting from the hyper-aggressive free agent market for starters to the tune of a three-year, $75MM deal. Slugger Joc Pederson similarly commanded a stout $18.5MM-per-season annual value on his two-year deal. As with Eovaldi, that topped expectations.
Texas did trim some payroll and replace a bullpen arm in one fell swoop, trading the final two years of club control over first baseman Nathaniel Lowe to the Nationals in exchange for five seasons of control over lefty Robert Garcia. The 28-year-old's 4.22 ERA last season isn't particularly exciting, but a big 29.9% strikeout rate and sharp 6.4% walk rate portend improvements in the ERA department moving forward.
The rest of the Rangers' bullpen dealings have been cost-efficient in nature. Texas brought old friend Chris Martin back on a one-year, $5.5MM deal earlier this month. They had the advantage of being Martin's hometown club, which held appeal to him in the final season of his career; he's announced he expects to retire after the 2025 season and reportedly turned down more money elsewhere to pitch his final year close to home. Free agents Hoby Milner (another Fort Worth area native), Shawn Armstrong and Jacob Webb signed for $2.5MM, $1.25MM and $1.25MM, respectively.
Meanwhile, the free agents who've bid farewell to the Rangers seem to be in demand. Leclerc commanded a $10MM guarantee on a one-year deal with the A's. Yates has reached a tentative agreement with the Dodgers, though financial terms are not yet clear and he's not yet taken his physical. The aggressive market for late-inning arms figures to allow Robertson to cash in on an eight-figure salary. Chafin has garnered interest from the Yankees and Cubs at varying points this winter and is surely talking to other teams as the market for relievers heats up. In the past week alone, we've seen Tanner Scott, Yates, Paul Sewald and A.J. Minter reach free agent agreements. The markets for Carlos Estevez and Kyle Finnegan are picking up. The Cubs are talking to the Astros about Ryan Pressly.
Yates' agreement with the Dodgers rankled many Rangers fans who'd hoped they could bring the 37-year-old back as a finishing piece to the bullpen revamp. Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young, however, has indicated that while the door is still cracked for another acquisition, the bulk of the team's heavy lifting has likely been completed.
Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday that the Rangers never made a formal offer to Yates, recognizing where his market was headed while they faced payroll constrictions from ownership. Per Grant, if the Rangers add to the 'pen, it'd likely have to come via the trade market. They're about $6MM shy of the luxury-tax threshold, per Roster Resource, and staying under that $241MM cutoff is said to be a priority for the Rangers.
It's always possible they could strike gold on another Yates-sized reclamation project; Kendall Graveman and Scott Barlow are among the buy-low candidates with some track record as a successful late-inning reliever. Generally speaking, however, if the Rangers want to add a solid closing option, they're not going to find one for under $6MM in free agency.
With that in mind, let's run through some possible options for Young, GM Ross Fenstermaker and their staff as they peruse the market in hopes of adding one more high-leverage option.
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Alex Bregman, Tigers Reportedly At “Standstill”
Spring training is now just a few weeks away but many free agents are still unsigned, with Alex Bregman arguably being the most notable. The Tigers are one club that have been connected to him but Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press reports that talks are “at a standstill.”
At the start of the offseason, MLBTR ranked Bregman the #3 free agent of the winter, behind Juan Soto and Corbin Burnes. Soto and Burnes are both now signed, leaving Bregman as the top guy still out there. We predicted a seven-year, $182MM deal that ended up being sort of a midpoint for Bregman’s negotiations earlier in the offseason. The Astros reportedly offered Bregman $156MM over six years, though the third baseman was trying to get to $200MM.
Rather than meet in the middle, Houston walked away. They lined up a deal with the Cardinals for Nolan Arenado, though Arenado used his no-trade clause to quash that. Instead, they acquired Isaac Paredes from the Cubs and signed Christian Walker to take over at first base. Since then, Bregman has been connected to clubs like the Tigers, Blue Jays, Red Sox and others, but without much apparent momentum.
The Cubs reportedly sniffed around the possibility of a short-term deal for Bregman but agent Scott Boras said last week that Bregman wasn’t considering that path. Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer also recently downplayed the possibility of the Cubs getting involved. “I think likely,” Hoyer said at Cubs Convention a few days ago, when asked if the Cubs’ third baseman is already in the organization. “Certainly, we’ll look to supplement. Infield is an area we’re focused on (for the bench), but I think the likelihood is yes.”
Matt Shaw is perhaps the best solution there but he has not yet made his major league debut. There’s no guarantee he will hit the ground running in 2025, so there’s an argument for adding someone established, but it seems the Cubs are trying to be more opportunistic than aggressive in Bregman’s market.
It makes for something of a staring contest with the 2025 season approaching. It was around this time last year that Boras started pivoting to short-term deals for Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery. Boras has apparently made that turn with client Pete Alonso, as Alonso’s camp reportedly pitched a three-year deal to the Mets recently.
But with Bregman still holding out hope for a longer deal, it seems to be leading to the general sluggishness of the third base market. The Tigers have had a fairly quiet offseason, with one-year deals for Alex Cobb and Gleyber Torres being their primary moves so far. They have Jace Jung and Matt Vierling as potential in-house options at the hot corner, so they have a bit of leverage to wait out Bregman.
With Vierling also capable of playing the outfield, Jung seems like the logical choice for third base right now. He struck out in 30.9% of his plate appearances last year but that was a small-sample debut of 94 plate appearances. He didn’t have those kind of strikeout rates in the minors and still managed to draw a lot of walks while making his major league debut. Like with Shaw, there’s no guarantee that he can take the job and run with it but the Tigers might feel they have enough cover to not go crazy on a Bregman deal.
As long as Bregman stays out there, it seems to be preventing other dominoes from falling. The Cardinals came into the winter looking to do something of a reset but they haven’t been able to execute it yet, which seems to be at least partially because Arenado wanted clarity on Bregman’s situation before he’d commit to being traded. That has left St. Louis in a sort of holding pattern where they might just keep Arenado and other veterans into the start of the 2025 season.
Daniel Kramer of MLB.com also reports that the Bregman situation is leaving the Mariners playing a waiting game. While the M’s are not in on Bregman, they are impacted by the situation nonetheless. Kramer writes that the M’s “believe they’re positioned to make a notable move before Spring Training” but are holding on to see if a Bregman deal sparks movement elsewhere, since upgrading at third is on their to-do list.
Seattle has been fairly quiet this winter, with their signing of infielder Donovan Solano to a one-year, $3.5MM deal being their most notable move. Kramer reports that the M’s don’t plan to deploy him at second and he will be in the mix for playing time at first base more than anywhere else. That perhaps suggests Solano will be platooning with Luke Raley, since Solano is better against lefties and Raley the opposite.
For third base, Kramer floats various possible scenarios that could come to pass as the offseason progresses. He mentions that the Red Sox could land Bregman, which could perhaps make someone like Triston Casas more available. Casas doesn’t play third but it could perhaps lead to Solano moving across the diamond for more time over there. Kramer also floats the possibility of the Tigers signing Bregman and making Jung available, or a similar situation with someone on the Blue Jays like Orelvis Martínez or Addison Barger. It’s also possible that infielders like Luis Arráez of the Padres or Willi Castro of the Twins become more available once Bregman is off the board.
Until then, the Mariners are left laying in the cut, though they have explored other options. They had talks with the Cubs about Nico Hoerner and Bellinger, though the Hoerner deal seemed to become less likely when Paredes was sent to Houston in the Kyle Tucker deal. Perhaps the Hoerner trade talks could be revisited if Bregman ends up a Cub, which is perhaps another reason for the M’s to wait. The Bellinger connection was reported earlier in the offseason.
Another path the M’s considered, according to Kramer, was getting Nathaniel Lowe from the Rangers. However, it seems Texas didn’t feel great about dealing Lowe within their division, which led to him being dealt to the Nationals instead.
For now, it all feels like the part of the standoff where everyone has their hand by their holster, waiting for movement. It’s possible that bodies start dropping once someone flinches, but it’s a staredown for the time being.
Rangers Sign Chad Wallach To Minors Contract
The Rangers have signed catcher Chad Wallach to a minor league split contract, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reports. Wallach will receive an invitation to Texas’ big league Spring Training camp.
The veteran backstop spent the last three seasons in the Angels organization, re-signing with the Halos in each of the last two winters. After seeing some action in every MLB campaign from 2017-23, Wallach didn’t get any time in the Show last year, as he hit .247/.337/.430 over 335 plate appearances with Triple-A Salt Lake. Logan O’Hoppe and Matt Thaiss stayed healthy and handled all of the catching duties for Los Angeles last season, so there was never any reason for Wallach to receive a call-up.
As he enters his age-34 season, Wallach now heads into a new environment with the Rangers, though his path to playing time isn’t much clearer. Jonah Heim and Kyle Higashioka are set to be the Rangers’ top catching duo, and Tucker Barnhart was also inked to a minor league contract. It could be that Texas simply wants as many backstops in camp as possible, but should Barnhart opt out of his deal to pursue another opportunity elsewhere, Wallach might be viewed as the likelier candidate to actually stay in the organization as an experienced catcher for the Triple-A affiliate.
Wallach has hit .198/.263/.328 with five home runs over 443 career plate appearances during his seven MLB seasons. A backup for much of his career with the Reds, Marlins, and Angels, he received his most playing time in 2023, when a spate of injuries to the Halos’ catching corps allowed Wallach to amass 172 PA over 65 games.
Rangers Notes: deGrom, Seager, Carter, Jung
Rangers right-hander Jacob deGrom is enjoying the first fully healthy offseason he’s had in quite some time after returning from rehab for Tommy John surgery back in September. As noted by Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News, deGrom spoke to reporters about his outlook headed into the 2025 season and revealed that he’s begun throwing off the mound early this winter. The veteran hopes that building up towards pitching in games more slowly over a longer period of time than he has in the past will help him to stay healthy this season.
The 36-year-old is perhaps the very best pitcher in the entire sport when healthy, but maintaining his health has been a struggle over the past half decade. After winning back-to-back NL Cy Young awards with the Mets in 2018 and ’19 and finishing third during the shortened 2020 season, deGrom got off to an unbelievable start in 2021 with a 1.08 ERA and an eye-popping 45.1% strikeout rate. Unfortunately, he was sidelined in early July with forearm and elbow issues that ultimately ended his season. It’s been more of the same ever since, with deGrom making increasingly brief appearances in the majors each year but nonetheless continuing to dominate whenever he’s on the mound.
Since the start of the 2021 season, deGrom has pitched to a 2.01 ERA (200 ERA+) with a 1.63 FIP and 307 strikeouts in 197 1/3 innings. That would be on a shortlist for the greatest pitching seasons of all time if it hadn’t taken deGrom parts of four seasons to accumulate those numbers, and after watching Jordan Montgomery and Max Scherzer depart from their rotation in back-to-back offseasons the Rangers are surely hoping that they’ll get to see what deGrom can do over a full slate of starts this year. That’s something deGrom is fully on board with, as he told reporters (including McFarland) yesterday that his goal is to make 30 starts this year.
While McFarland notes that deGrom has not yet spoken to Rangers brass about his workload for 2025, the idea of a pitcher with deGrom’s injury history making 30 starts can’t be entirely dismissed. After all, southpaw Garrett Crochet made 32 starts with the White Sox last year despite not having pitched more than 65 innings in a season throughout college and his entire professional career due to injuries and time spent in the bullpen. The White Sox made that possible by aggressively managing his innings throughout the second half. He never recorded an out in the fifth inning this year after the calendar flipped to July and his pitch count maxed out at 77 after the All-Star break. Crochet, of course, is more than a decade younger than deGrom, but this sort of aggressive innings management could allow the Rangers to utilize their ace all throughout the regular season and into the playoffs without him needing to throw anything close to 200 innings.
deGrom isn’t the only key player for the Rangers who is hoping for better health in 2024. McFarland relays that third baseman Josh Jung, outfielder Evan Carter, and shortstop Corey Seager are all healthy and ready for Spring Training next month after undergoing surgeries in the fall. Seager underwent sports hernia surgery back in September but resumed baseball activities in November, while Jung and Carter are on a slightly more delayed timeline after undergoing wrist and back surgery respectively in October.
That trio being healthy and effective in 2025 would be a huge boon for the Rangers who failed to defend their 2023 World Series title in the 2024 postseason in large part thanks to a lackluster offense. Rangers hitters produced a collective wRC+ of just 95 last year as Seager was limited to 123 games by injuries while Jung and Carter managed just 46 and 45 games respectively. Seager remained as effective as ever when healthy enough to take the field with a .278/.353/.521 slash line in 533 trips to the plate, but Jung (102 wRC+) and especially Carter (80 wRC+) struggled to keep up with their expected production even when they were on the field due to the nagging nature of their injuries.
While the club has augmented its offense this winter by bringing in Joc Pederson and Jake Burger to replace Nathaniel Lowe in the lineup, better health from Jung and Carter figure to be necessary if the Rangers hope to look more like their 2023 offense, which was third in baseball with a 116 wRC+, than their below-average 2024 club in the upcoming season. Healthy seasons from Jung and Carter would also come with the benefit of pushing outfielder Leody Taveras and infielder Josh Smith into bench roles, giving them one of the deeper positional groups in the sport when fully healthy.
Chris Young Discusses Rangers’ Bullpen Plans
The Rangers have made retooling their bullpen a priority after losing Kirby Yates, David Robertson, and José Leclerc to free agency at the start of the offseason. It’s an endeavor they’ve been largely successful in: Chris Martin, Robert Garcia, Jacob Webb, Shawn Armstrong, and Hoby Milner are all new additions who should help to steady the club’s bullpen in 2025. With that being said, though, it’s worth noting that the Rangers’ relief corps posted a 4.41 ERA last year even with Yates, Robertson, and Leclerc in the fold. That was a bottom-five figure in baseball, so merely replacing that production on the back-end would not be enough to make the club’s bullpen even league average.
It’s under that backdrop that president of baseball operations Chris Young commented (as relayed by Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News) on the state of the bullpen during the club’s FanFest event yesterday and left the door open for another addition. While Young acknowledged that the club’s signings to this point are an improvement over what they had at the start of the offseason, he adds that the club is “going to need more than we have” over the course of the season.
“Some of that’s going to need to come internally with our player development, and some of it may be externally, but it’s our job to continue to look for ways to upgrade,” Young said, as relayed by Grant.
To that end, Young suggested the club is “staying open-minded” about the possibility of further bullpen upgrades. That he didn’t commit more strongly to another external addition could be a consequence of the club’s budget, as Grant notes the club is rapidly approaching the first luxury tax threshold of $241MM. The Rangers are known to be aiming to duck under that threshold this year to reset their penalties as a repeat offender, and RosterResource projects the club for a luxury tax payroll of nearly $235MM in 2025. That leaves just $6MM of breathing room below that first threshold, which isn’t likely to be enough to make another impact relief addition in a market where players like Leclerc and Andrew Kittredge are garnering $10MM salaries in free agency.
Grant suggests that the Rangers could look to explore the trade market as a way to move salary and make room for the addition of a closer while specifically name-checking righty Jon Gray and center fielder Leody Taveras as potential trade options. Gray is due $13MM in 2025, which is the final year of his four-year deal with the club, while Taveras avoided arbitration with the Rangers by agreeing to a $4.75MM salary for 2025. It seems unlikely that either player would be dealt as part of a pure salary dump given Taveras’s value to the club as a quality fourth outfielder and Gray’s fairly solid peripheral numbers last year, but both are coming off down seasons and might be difficult to trade for full value. Of course, it’s also possible that a trade could allow the club to add relief talent more directly, as swapping first baseman Nathaniel Lowe to the Nationals for Garcia did last month.
Should the Rangers make room in the budget to pursue another arm with late-inning experience, both Yates and Robertson remain available in free agency. Tanner Scott is the best reliever available on the market but seems unlikely to fall into the club’s price range. The same can likely be said for top right-handed reliever Carlos Estévez. Kenley Jansen offers one possible alternative to Yates and Robertson who could be available on a similarly short-term deal. The most affordable option available if the Rangers are hoping to add closing experience to the roster would likely be right-hander Kyle Finnegan, who was non-tendered by the Nationals back in November. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected Finnegan for an $8.6MM salary in his final trip through arbitration and, while it isn’t completely unheard of for a non-tendered player to meet or even exceed their arbitration projection on the open market, it stands to reason that Finnegan is unlikely to land a contract significantly more lucrative than that figure.
Rangers Reach Streaming Deal With Victory+ For 2025
The Rangers are planning to announce a streaming agreement for the 2025 season, reports Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. The team is set to join Victory+, the provider which also carries the NHL’s Stars. While Stars games are available on the service for free, consumers will need to pay an annual subscription fee to access Rangers contests, Grant writes. Pricing has not been reported.
The organization has been without an in-market broadcasting plan since the end of last season. Its contract with Diamond Sports Group (now known as Main Street Sports), the corporation operating the Bally Sports regional networks, expired at the end of the year. With the company facing questions about its long-term viability even after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the Rangers haven’t had interest in negotiating a new agreement. That’s in contrast to the majority of teams that had previously contracted with Main Street Sports. All others have either renegotiated a deal with the regional sports network — presumably for a lesser rights fee — or handed distribution over to Major League Baseball.
Grant suggests this is likely to be the first of multiple steps to expand distribution of Rangers games within the local market. The Dallas Morning-News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram have each previously written that the team hopes to essentially build its own RSN by directly negotiating individual deals with various streaming and/or cable providers.
The model could leave the Rangers with some uncertainty about their local broadcast revenues. The team’s contract with Diamond Sports Group reportedly paid around $111MM through 2023. Texas agreed to a lesser fee — reportedly around $90MM — on a restructured deal to stay on Bally Sports Southwest for the ’24 season. It’s not clear how much they anticipate making off their partnership with Victory+ or any additional agreements they may reach in the next two months.